Service providers and enterprises have historically managed their networks by collecting information about data traffic at various points in the network and generating measures of network performance which can be evaluated and used for planning, establishing compliance, troubleshooting, and taking corrective action. Data relating to performance may be aggregated and presented according to certain time frames, applications, sites, devices (e.g., by server or client), and/or sessions between specific devices to provide the network administrator with insight into the nature and source of problems.
One performance metric that can be monitored is the number of occurrences of reset messages that terminate communication flows or sessions established between two devices. An unusually high number of reset messages occurring in a given time frame involving a particular device, connection, application, site, or across an enterprise may indicate an operational problem. Unfortunately, current monitoring techniques do not distinguish between “normal” reset messages that merely terminate inactive flows and reset messages that terminate flows during an ongoing transaction within the flow, resulting in an incomplete transaction. It would be desirable to enhance network monitoring capabilities by providing visibility into the impact of flow resets on individual transactions which may be ongoing.